Today , January 27 , would have been the 259th birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart , one of the greatest names in classical music . Child prodigy , pianist, violinist , composer , childlike jokester and prankster , amiable weirdo . An incomprehensible genius who began composing as a small boy , took the aristocratic courts of Europe by storm , but often frustrated and disappointed as an adult when he had to earn a living as a composer and perfroming musician .

He was the son of Leopold Mozart , a well known violinist , pedagogue , conductor and composer in his own wright , who taught him everything he knew about music , but who was surpassed by his own son , who was born in the picturesque town of Salzburg Austria in 1756 ,which still honors its most famous native son year round . Mozart showed an astonishing talent as bith a composer, pianist and violinist from childhood, and Leopold realized he had a cash cow in his on son , whom he expolited by sending him on tours all over Eurpe under his guidance .

When he grew up , Mozart still coveted recognition for his astonishing talents , but was no loger a child prodigy . He was forced to accept employment in his home town as a composer of sacred music for the Archbishop of Salzburg , whom he disliked , and felt confined in provincial Salzburg . But for th last decade of his life, he moved to Vienna, musical capitol of Europe, and was able to earn a steady living as a freelance composer and pianist , iViennese musicians to put on concerts of his own music ,playing his many piano concertos and his symphonies and operas .

The story that he died a pauper, unappreciated by the cruel Viennese is an urban legend ; he actuially did very well , but ran into serious financial difficult8ies because he enjoyed gambling and the good life . He died in 1791 , leaving his famous Reuiem mass unfinished . It was soon completed by one of his pupils, and this version is still widely performed and recorded . The musical world has been speculating on what divine masterpieces he might have written if he had lived longer, but this is futile . In his 35 years , he composed over 600 works in all musical genres : symphonies, concertos for piano, violin, flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and French horn ; 22 operas, some of which were left in ncomplete form ; no fewer than 27 piano concertos , Masses, assorted sacred choral works, serenades, divertimentos, etc, songs , string quartets, , piano sonatas, violin sonatas , you name it .

Unfortunately , many people have only a superficial familiarity with his music, knowing a few of his most famous works ,or even just a handful of famous melodies by him . But you shouln't take these few works for granted when you can hear all of them on CD . Not that you need to , because not everything by Mozart is a sublime masterpiece . He wrote some works as potboilers ; nothing wrong with this .

But if you don't know his music very well , you should at least familiarize yourself with his greatest operas "Don Giovanni", Le Nozze Di Figaro ,(the marriage of Figaro ), Cosi Fan Tutte (So do they all ), and Die Zauberflote , or the magic flute . Plus his last six symphonies out of41 numbered ones, 35-41) , the piano concertos 20-27, violin concertos 3,4 and 5, the four horn concertos , the clarinet concerto, the Requiem , some of his piano sonatas , and some of his string quartets to start .

The so-called "Eine Kleine Nachttmusik ", is very pleasant, but not one of his greatest works . It doesn't mean "A little night music" in the sense of listening to a little bit of music . Nachtmusik means a seranade in German, and means "Night Music ". It means " A Little serenade ".

But you'll never regret getting to know Mozart's music better ! One note : Enjoyable as it is, the famous movie "Amadeus" plays fast and loose with the facts of Mozart's life . Don't take it too seriously .

HIP stands for "Historically informed performance " , that is, using the musical instruments of the past , or replicas of them , to perform the music of such great composers as Bach , Handel , Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven , and now even the composers of the 19th and early 20 th century . And music of earlier composers such as Henry Purcell , Claudio Monteverdi and others , who lived before the 18th century .

Not only using the old instruments , but carefully studying the differences in playing technique style of interpretation , and dutifully following what musicologists and other scholars believe to be " correct performance practi , that is not just playng the notes as written , but inflecting them in a style considered to be "authentic ". For example, embellishing melodic lines with all sorts of unwritten ornaments . Merely to play the notes as written written is to completely misunderstand the composer's intentions . This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to learmnng the ropes of the period instrument movement .

A number of composers form the past have left treatises on how they felt music should be interpreted , and these are extremely valuable . But we still don't know exactly what the music sounded like or exactly how musicians interpreted it , or what long dead composers would or would not have approved of when it comes to performing their music . A time machine has yet to be invented . If only we had one !

Among the differences between the old instruments and the familiar modern ones are the use of strings wound from animal guts instead of the steel ones which became standard in the 20th century . These sound mrkedly different from steel strings . Also, string players on old instruments use little or no vibrato , although we know that some vibrato was used in the past . Some HIP musicians and conductors have become overzealous and musically pridush and avoid vibrato altogether .

Flutes were made out of wood , making them sound somewhat more like recorders than the metal ones used by 20th century flutists . They, plus the oboes, bassoons nd clarinetsw, are much simpler and have fewer keys to press .

Horns and trumpets are natural, that is, lacking in valves . This means that every time you play in a different key, you have to use a different crook , or length of tubing , to change the key in which the instrument plays . Composers were limited in the melodic lines they could write because of this . The tympny, or kettle drums, have leather rather than metal sufaces for the tympanist to strike with the mallet, making them sound somewhat different .

Harpsichords are more commonly used than before, as well as early pianos , which sound quite different and less aggressive than the modern concert grand . Orchestras and solo pperfomers an chamber ensembles tune to a somewhat lower pitch , usually about a quarter to a half tone lower . If you are blessed or cursed, with perfect pitch , a piece in C major may sound to you like one in B major !

So why do I ask whther the movement ot perform music on period instruments is a kind of musical religion ? The reason is that many HIP musicians aare convinced that THEY are performing the music the right way , and are recreating the music exactly as it sounded in the past . Not all of them . Some have the humility to admit they can't be sure . Some prominent music critics and distinguished musicologists have a similar kind of arrogance .

Many of thes HIP tend to look down on musicians who use modern instruments as "uninformed " about correct performance practice and the whole HIP movement, which is not necessarily the case . You might look on the HIP musicians as the true believers who think they have the one true musical religion .

There are some musicians who look down on the whole HIP movement and dismiss it as nothing but musical pedantry and dismiss it as worthless . Among these are such world famous violinists as Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman , and the late conductor Lorin Maazel ,who past away less than a year ago . You might call these the musical atheists .

Then there are those like myself, who find the movement very interesting and have liked SOME but not all HIP performances I have heard . WE don't know how authentic the performances are . WE are the agnostics .

Some of the leading conductors of period instrument orchestras are the Austrian Nikolaus Harnoncourt , the Englishmen Sir Roger Norrington , Christoher Hogwood , who also passed away last year , the Dutchman Frans Bruggen, , also deceased last year , , the Englishman Sir John Eliot Gardiner , and the Englishman Nicholas McGegan . They also conduct prestigious mainstream modern instrument orchestras such as the Berlin Philharmonic, the Royal Concertgebouw orchesta of Amsterdam , and others , generally trying to come as close as possible to imitating the old style of playing as possible . The Englishman Sir Simon Rattle, music director of the great Berlin Philharmonic , sometimes conducts period instrument orchestras .

Some of thes perido inswtrument orchestras have colorful names as " Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment," the Orchestre Revolutionaire & Romantique ", " The Academy of Ancient Music " etc .

There are also instrumental virtuosos of period instruments who are active as soloists , such as violinist Andrew Manze aof England and Surch cellist Anner Bylsma , to name only a couple .

More recently, the HP movement has been applied to later composers such Wagner, Berlioz, Schumann , Brahms , and even Bruckner and Mahler . It has now moved up to Debussy, Ravel, and Stravisnky, believe it or not ! But the later you go, the less difference there is between period and modern instruments .

if you're not familiar with period intruments , there are an enormous number of recordings on them by the musicians I mentioned and many others . Listen , and decide for yourself whether you like them or not ! At least no one has ever killed other people over the kind of instruments they use !

This year marks the 150 th anniversity of the the birth of two great Scandinavian composers , Jean Sibelius of Finland and Carl Nielsen of Denmark . Sibelius is the better known of the two to the concertgoing public , but Carl Nielsen of Denmark has been steadily gaining more recognition . Nielsen died in 1931 and Sibelius in 1957 . Both composers knew and admired each other , but their music is vastly different .

Jean Sibelius put the small nation of Finland , which had long been ruled by Sweden and Russia at different times, on the musical map , and while Nielsen was by no means the first Danish composer to achieve some reputation in his country , he was the first truly great and original one . Both were greatly honored in their native countries , but Nielsen did not become well known outside his native Denmark and Sweden until many years after his death .

The music of Sibelius, on the other hand , was widely performed outside of Scandinavia during his long lifetime , and his orchestral works ,including seven symphonies, a violin concerto and assorted highly descriptive works evoking the folklore and colorful wild landscapes of Finland , were championed by such great conductors as Serge Koussevitzky, Sir Thomas Beecham , Sir John Barbirolli and others . But Nielsen's quirky , strange and highly individual music was almost totally unknown in America until Leonard Bernstein discovered it in the 1960s while music director of the New York Philharmonic and began to perform and record it . And since then, many other leading comductors have perforned and recorded his music .

Nielsen is best known for his highly original six symphonies, the delightful woodwind quintet , and his delightfully weird his clarinet concerto ,but he aso wrote a number of symphonic poems , concetos for violin and flute, , various choral works , piano pieces , songs , and two operas etc . Sibelius also wrote numerous works for piano even though he was a violinist, not a pianist . Nielsen was also a violinist , and both composers were also active as conductors .

The orchestral works of Sibelius are often brooding , mysterious and full of misty colors ; the music of Nielsen is robust , extroverted , muscular , filled with bright colors and unlike the Finn , even witty and humorous at times . Nilesen's music, particularly his later works , are much more harmonically adventurous and even approach atonality at times .

According to Leonard Bernstein, one characteristic of Nielsen's music is its "total unpredictability ". His music is always full of surprises . For example, the two sets of battling antiphonal tympani in the finale of his tumultuous 4th symphony, subtitles "The Inextinguishable" , and the passage in the 5th symphony where the snare drummer is instructed by the composer to imprivise his part, flailing away madly as though he had gone berserk , with no regard for what the rest of the orchestra is doing ! In the flute concerto , a bass trombone acts as a kind of heckler to the solo flute !

Some of the most important works of Sibelius are based on the ancient epic of pagan Finnish history the Kalevala , with its gods, heroes, sorcerors and magic spells . The Kalevala has been translated into many different languages, including English , and is well worth reading . These include the early choral symphony "Kullervo ",, which the composer suppressed and which was not perfomed until the 1970s, the "Four Legends from the Kalevala ", the most famous part being the haunting "Swan of Tuonela ", with its portrayal of a swan wandering through the gloomy waters of the Finnish Hades , uding an English horn as soloist .

One of the last works of Sibelius is the harrowing Tapiola" , a chilling description of the wild winds and storms of the Fiinnish forests . Tapio is the Finnish god of the forests . For some reason, Sibelius seems to have burned out as a composer for the last 20 years of his long life , producing almost nothing and destroying a number of works he had written . There were rumors of an 8th symphony , but it was either never never completed and left in fragmentary sketches or possibly destroyed by the composer .

Sibelius lived a rather isolated life in his home "Ainola" , named after his wife Aino ( pronounced I know ) , sometimes receiving visitors and listening to performances of his music over the radio . Ainola lies not too far from the Finnish capitol Helsinki , and you can still visit it .

Carl Nielsen died of a heart ailment in 1931 at the height of his powers as a composer . But you should not miss the music of either composer . There are numerous recordings of the symphonies and other orchestral works of these two Scandinavian giants by such great conductors as Sir Thomas Beecham, Leonard Bernstein , Serge Koussevitzky , Paavo Berglund, Herbert Blomstedt, Neeme Jarvi , and many others , and most of the greatest violinists of the 20th century have recorded the violin concerto .